Snow Angels
by smartybear2
Summary: The first snowfall of the year always calls for a celebration of memories for Akane. This year she's off creating new ones for someone else. First published in 1996 on my geocities website - archiving here for posterity.


**Snow Angels**

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 _Snow. Soft, white, powdery newly-fallen snow. The first real snowfall of the year. It had snowed all night while she was asleep, changing the black and gray landscape of the day before into a wonderland of silver and light. The snow had blanketed the yard with a thick mantle of white, the early morning sunlight turning it into a fairyland. Its stark beauty called to Akane the same way it always did every winter, called to her like an old friend inviting her to play._

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All characters are property of the great Takahashi-sama (I am not worthy…) and Viz and whoever else owns copyright… I'm just a broke psychology student whose brain is about to give out from studying plant reproductive parts – and having this scene traipsing around in her mind at the same time. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy it and find it worth waiting for!

* * *

Akane gazed outside her bedroom window with an eager smile hovering on her lips. Her wide brown eyes were bright with anticipation, her cheeks flushed with joy, her hands clasped in front of her to keep them from clapping loudly, her whole body on the verge of a gleeful skip or two.

It was always such a wonderful sight.

Snow. Soft, white, powdery newly-fallen snow. The first real snowfall of the year. It had snowed all night while she was asleep, changing the black and gray landscape of the day before into a wonderland of silver and light. The snow had blanketed the yard with a thick mantle of white, the early morning sunlight turning it into a fairyland. Its stark beauty called to Akane the same way it always did every winter, called to her like an old friend inviting her to play.

Suddenly the temptation of feeling the brisk winter breeze stinging her cheeks while she played in the snow outside was much too strong to resist. After allowing herself one light hop, she quickly dressed, smiling all the while.

She twirled a little, feeling giddy and like a child again, and quietly dashed out to meet her old friend, the snow.

At first, she just watched the sun climb the sky and its rays hit the crystals on the ground, the cold, crisp air stinging her cheeks and searing her lungs, savoring her quiet time in the company of so much beauty. However, in what seemed like only a few moments, the peaceful morning was quickly broken by childish squeals and loud laughter as the children of Nerima emerged from their homes and welcomed winter as only young children can, echoing from yard to yard across the city.

Akane crouched down and rolled a small mound of snow about as high as her knees forward – the beginnings of a snowman – then sensing a movement, looked behind her cautiously. She had no plans of being buried in snow again this year. The year before Ranma came, the last year Nabiki had shared this ritual with her, it had taken Akane almost five minutes before she had managed to free herself from the snowdrift Nabiki had pushed her into as revenge for beating her in a snowball fight. Nabiki couldn't help pull her up because she was laughing too hard at the sight of Akane flailing in the snow.

Akane grinned at the memory as she caught up a handful of snow and began to pat it into shape as her snowman's head. Nabiki hadn't gone out with her last year, saying that they were getting too old for this, but with Nabiki, one could never be too sure.

A shadow fell over her shoulder, and instinctively Akane sprung from her crouch, spun around, and hurled the handful of snow into the face of the person behind her. The sudden movement caused her to lose her balance and fall on her rump on top of the snowman she had been building before finally falling flat on her back.

She suddenly found herself squinting up at a wide-eyed, open-mouthed Ranma with snow caking his hair and jacket. Akane gasped and put her hand to her mouth to keep from giggling at the sight of his mouth just opening and closing, obviously at a loss for words over what had just happened.

"Oh, Ranma, I'm so sorry," she said, muffling a giggle. "I thought you were Nabiki. She likes attacking me from behind." She tried to push herself from the snow, anchoring her hands behind her for leverage only to find herself elbow-deep in the snow and quite suddenly flat on her back.

"Kasumi sent me. You didn't have breakfast," he finally choked out, still looking down at her with that stunned expression on his face. He still hadn't reached up to wipe away the snow from his face. "Nabiki said you would be here, that you always regressed about a decade when the first snowfall of the year comes along." Shaking his head in disbelief and causing the clumps of snow to fall off completely from his hair, he stooped down beside her and tried to help her up.

"Ha! It's not as if she wasn't doing this just two years ago," she muttered with a snort and a dark scowl on her face, allowing him to lift her by her elbows into a sitting position in the snow.

"You really do this every year?" he asked, gingerly lowering himself beside her on the snow and peering at her face, blinking incredulously. He looked so ridiculous to her, she lost her scowl and began to laugh in earnest.

"What? What's so funny?" he asked, scowling defensively and shaking off his hair with one of his hands.

She controlled her mirth with difficulty, clutching at her aching sides. "You are," she admitted, wiping her eyes and shooting him a wide grin. "Something about the expression on your face right after I hit you with that snowball reminded me of a goldfish I saw at a pet shop downtown."

His scowl melted away, and he laughed when he realized that he had been opening and closing his mouth soundlessly rather often the past few minutes. "I'm sorry for gaping," he apologized, grinning back at her. "I just don't remember seeing you do this last year…"

"I only do this on the first day of snow – it's sort of… sort of a personal tradition," she explained as she stood up. "Maybe you and your dad were on a training trip at the time." She smiled brightly at him, happy to be here, happy that he was here with her. "Ever built a snowman?"

He returned her smile wryly. "Hey, I wasn't _that_ young when Pop and I left home. Of course I've built a snowman!" He deftly jumped up from his seat and landed on his feet, a feat of balance considering that the snow was calf deep.

She had stooped down again, gathering some snow into a small mound, packing it together to form another ball for rolling. "Want to help me build one? I seem to have sat on the one I was building." She looked up at him and saw him hesitate before crouching down beside her. She glanced at his practiced gestures curiously. "Did you ever get to do this when you were on your trips?"

"Do what?" he asked, meeting her curious eyes, all the while continuing his work with the snow.

"Nothing, just play in the snow like this."

"With Pop there really wasn't much time to play anything," he replied after a hesitant pause, looking away. "Everything was just training. Why?"

"Just curious." She paused, occasionally watching at his large, able hands scoop up snow and build the mound higher in smooth, graceful motion. It was just the way he was, then. It seemed that no matter what he did, he had perfect control of all himself, he could make any part of his body do anything; it was always so easy for him. Well, maybe not all parts of his body. His mouth often ran away from him – but lately, he had better control of even that as well. She loved to watch him move, no matter what he did, his muscles flowing to the rhythm of his own silent music…

"Akane? Anything wrong? Are you cold or something?"

She blinked, blushing when she realized she had been staring at his hands, and that he had stopped moving and was looking at her in concern. She cleared her throat before speaking. "No… nothing. I was just… remembering," she croaked.

"Remembering?"

Akane nodded and grinned reminiscently as she attempted to roll the considerable amount of snow they had gathered in front of her into a large ball for the snowman's body, leaving Ranma kneeling on the snow and watching her. She felt his eyes boring into her back as she trudged through the newly fallen snow away from him, waiting for her reply. "Last year was the first time that I did this all by myself. The year before you came to live with us, it was Nabiki and I… and long before that Kasumi and… Mom."

" _Nabiki_ did this with you?"

"Yeah. You'd never think so, would you? It was a family tradition. The reason she isn't here now is because she just thinks she's too grown up to play in the snow anymore," Akane explained with a roll of her eyes. "She _never_ won any of our snowball fights," she added smugly, planting her hands on her hips and frowning at the large ball of snow before deciding that it was not yet big enough to suit her. She met Ranma's eyes over the huge snowball and grinned when she saw him doing his goldfish impression once more. "Get over it, Ranma – hard as it is to believe, Nabiki was a kid once, too."

"You can't really blame me for finding it incredibly hard to imagine, though," he defended himself. He stood up and walked over to her, then took his turn in pushing the snowball for a few lengths back and forth along the lot to fatten it up. "I can't picture her ever doing something like this." At her reproachful frown, he wisely shut up.

"The games we had every first snow of the year are one of the few things I can remember doing with Mother," she finally confided after a companionable silence. She had already begun piling up more snow, beginnings of their snowman's torso. "She used to build snowmen for each of us, then throw me into a snowdrift and have Nabiki and Kasumi dig me out."

"Do you really remember all of that?" he asked after a pause. Akane saw a shadow fall over her, and she looked up to find that he had pushed the snowball, now standing just past his waist, to a stop a few feet in front of her. He stood beside it, regarding her with friendly curiosity. "I don't think I can remember anything that happened to me when I was three as clearly as that," he admitted with a wry grin.

She nodded solemnly, meeting his eyes. "Nabiki and Kasumi think that I just know what I do from what they've told me about them, but I do remember." She sighed, the warm rush of her breath creating a fleeting puff of frost in the crisp winter morning air. "I guess one reason why I love playing in the first snow so much is because it's one of those times I can really see her," she confessed as she began rolling the second snowball just back and forth in front of her. "It… It really scares me when it seems that I'm beginning to forget."

He didn't reply to that, but Akane saw a sympathetic glint in his eyes before she looked away, concentrating on her task. A companionable silence fell between them, the kind that existed between very old, very good friends, and in the distance they could hear the shill shouts of other children in the neighborhood who were taking advantage of winter's gift of snow.

Finally gauging the second snowball big enough, Akane stood and bent to pick the snowball up. It was about as high as her mid-thigh as she stood calf-deep in the snow and rather heavy, so she was glad when Ranma stepped forward and bent down to help her, locking his arms over hers as they moved to support the snowball from beneath. She flashed him a grateful smile just as they heaved it up, and she got a fleeting look at the answering smile in his eyes before her line of vision was dominated by the blinding white of the snowball inches away from her face.

"How do the little kids do this?" Ranma asked with a small grunt as they took sidesteps towards the original snowball through the deep snow. It was not easy as it appeared. Akane tripped and lost her balance once – only kept standing by Ranma's firm grip on her arms from the other side of the snowball.

"Well… they don't attempt to make snowmen of such colossal proportions," she replied on an embarrassed giggle. Akane's voice, though muffled by the snowball in front of her mouth, sounded sheepish. After a few more steps, they lifted their burden higher up with a swing of their arms and laid it on top of the original snowball, hearing it land with a satisfying thump. They unlocked arms and stepped back from the two-layered snowman, silently surveying their handiwork.

"Just one more snowball for the head, and we're all done," Akane said with a contented grin as she turned to Ranma. "Don't you think this is great fun?"

"Sure." He smirked at her and lifted his arms, gauging their length thoughtfully. "If we do that again, I'll bet I'll be able to increase my arms' reach by at least three more inches, and we'll both look like apes by lunch… hey!" He nimbly jumped away from the clump of snow she had playfully thrown at him. "What was that for?"

"You're being a Scrooge. Everyone likes the snow but you," she scolded in a surly voice, the twinkle in her eyes belying her tone as she bent down for another clump of snow and shifted it thoughtfully from one hand to another. "You needed to be taught a lesson."

"But I do like the snow," he countered with a grin, scooping up a clump of snow of his own, not taking his wary eyes from her for a moment. He narrowed his eyes, focusing on her face. "It's good for throwing!" Before Akane could duck, he let his snowball fly at her, just hard enough to knock the woolen cap from her head but lightly enough not to hurt her.

She let out a gasp of outrage, her own eyes narrowing. "Why you –" she began, then finding there were no words – and that she was on the verge of another attack of the giggles – she let fly the clump in her hands… one which he successfully evaded with a loud chuckle. "Just for that you have to be the one to finish the snowman's head."

He took a step back towards her, still eyeing her warily. "Only if you have no more snowballs coming," he stipulated.

She dropped back into the snow right in front of the snowman, shrugging at him, all innocence. "No more," she said with a solemn nod, holding out her empty mittened hands for him to see.

Satisfied with the results of his inspection, he sat beside her and promptly began to fashion the snowman's head from the snow, rolling it back and forth in front of him the same way she had done the second one.

Akane hid a smile upon seeing Ranma's intense frown of concentration, then threw back her head and tipped her face towards the sky, a satisfied smile on her face. "I do so love winter!" she exclaimed with a sigh then blushed, suddenly realizing that Ranma might find her exuberance strange. She cast a wary sidelong glance at him only to find a reflective look drift over his face even as his gaze remained fixed on the snowball in front of him.

"I… actually, I learned to hate winter when I was, you know, travelling with Pop," he finally admitted, looking at her with something akin to apology in his eyes. At her widened, incredulous gaze, he looked away from her and shrugged sheepishly. "It was always so very cold and there was much less to eat. Those things kinda replaced the fun memories I had about it."

She frowned as she imagined him as a little boy curled up in a thick blanket on a pallet in the snow by a fire, hardly able to sleep because of the chattering of his own teeth and the persistent growl of his empty stomach. The image caused the breath to catch in her throat, hardly able to blame him for being a Scrooge. On impulse, she put a gentle hand on his shoulder to get his attention, startling him into looking back at her.

Akane met his gaze with a smile that lit up her eyes and her entire face. "Well, now you have new ones," she said quietly, taking her hand from his shoulder and using it to tuck in a lock of hair behind her ear.

Ranma stared in bemusement at her smile for a long moment, his hands and his entire body still, drowning in it and not wanting to look away. There was so much sunshine in that smile, so sweet and comforting, its warmth inviting him to climb into it and wrap him in its welcoming embrace... Responding instinctively, he leaned slightly towards her, narrowing the already narrow space between their two faces.

"Ranma?"

The note in Akane's voice bordered between puzzlement and alarm, her eyes wide once more and her smile wavering slightly. It snapped Ranma out of his almost trance-like state, and he moved back and cleared his throat, shaking his head as if to clear it. Taking the snowball in his hands – and leaving Akane to stare at his back with wide, wondering eyes – he nimbly sprang up and placed it on top of the snowman.

"There, all done," he said, his voice gruff. He paused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "Geez… it looks awfully like Pop, doesn't it?"

"He'll throw you headfirst into the frozen pond if he hears you say that," Akane said wryly, standing up and walking up beside him. She still wore a slightly puzzled frown on her face, but at the full sight of the huge snowman they had built, she broke out into a wide grin. "But you're right, it does look like Uncle Saotome. Here, I have some extra coal. Let's make it into a snow panda instead."

She handed him five pieces of coal. He placed two of them on top of the snowman's head and the larger two he made into the panda's eyes. The last piece became the panda's nose. With his finger, Ranma drew a bear's smiling face below the nose and surveyed the result with hands on hips, nodding his head in satisfaction.

" _Now_ it really looks like, Pop," he said solemnly. "All it needs is the signboard."

"Yes, the one that says, 'Don't hurt me, I'm only a defenseless panda – be kind to animals,'" she deadpanned.

At that, they turned to one another, and, seeing the unholy amusement glinting in each other's eyes, burst into gales of laughter. They bent over with hilarity, clutching their stomachs, chuckling like little kids until tears were glinting in their eyes.

Ranma controlled his laughter first. He straightened, passing a hand over his moist eyes. He gazed at Akane's shaking and still-bent-over form with a wide grin, waiting patiently for her to surface. After a few more seconds, she finally did, arms still wrapped around her aching stomach.

"So, are you about ready to come in yet?" he asked her.

Akane hesitated, looking towards the house and then back at the empty lot, thick with the powdery snow. "You can go ahead if you want to," she offered with a tentative grin of her own. "Or you can stay out here with me. Ever make a snow angel?"

Ranma's brow furrowed in puzzlement. "A what?"

She threw herself backward into the snow, arms and legs akimbo. "A gaijin angel. With big wings," she said, moving her arms up and down and scissoring her legs through the snow. She stopped and lay ramrod straight in the snow so that he could see the pattern. "See? Try it, it's a lot of fun." She grinned up at him, a glint of challenge in her eyes. "Or are you afraid it's going to be too cold for you?"

"Ha! That'll be the day," he vowed, gingerly lying beside Akane in the snow, about an arm's length away from the arc of her snow angel's wings. "I'll make an even grander snow angel than yours." Hesitantly at first, then with growing enthusiasm, he repeated the motions Akane showed him. "Hey, this is fun." He sat up and looked behind him to see the pattern he had made in the snow. "And I was right – my angel's wings are larger."

She sat up herself and stuck her tongue out at him. "Of course it is," she scoffed, but there was a twinkle in her eyes. "Your gorilla-like arms are lots longer than mine." At his scowl, she lay back on the snow with a soft sigh. "I almost wish it could be winter the whole year. The snow is just so… wonderful." She began to sweep her arms through the snow again, making her angel's wings grow.

He lay back on the snow himself and looked up at the deep cerulean winter sky, taking a deep breath of the winter morning air himself before sweeping his own arms through the snow once more. They lay on the snow side by side for quite some time, rather far apart, but close enough for their fingertips to touch fleetingly every now and then as they swept their arms in wide arcs to make the angel wings. After a while, they both stopped, their hands lying far from their bodies in the snow, just a few inches away from one another.

Suddenly, quietly, he caught one of her mittened hands in his.

Startled, Akane looked towards him, her eyes tracing his profile and noting the slight blush he had on his face as he stared up at the sky. With a small smile of her own, she looked back up at the sky, contented with the feel of his hand holding hers. They lay that way for a while, blanketed once more by a comfortable silence.

"Akane?"

"Hmmm?"

"You're right. The snow _is_ wonderful."

And as Ranma looked around him, watching the bright, stark light of the winter morning turn the world silver and black, holding Akane's hand in his, he knew it was true.

\- end -


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